before my mind falls away to the brief little death each night (some still, some good, some fair, some cold like this) will let in, each day departed.but no, upon my honour, i would let the lady be the one to tell you, would like for you to let the lady tell you and let you take it all in for your own joy. if i say little it will be better, i say with some shame. my gifts with words are poor indeed when it is she that must speak. and so to better honour such unmatch'd, noble words, i will take my memory of the words i observed, the words she would say, words i will take from here and there in a reckless (one may say piteous) fashion, with naught in the way of "quoth she", but in my own mould to say what i must say, of my thoughts upon all she did say now that i have come to the end at last.

i would not choose, if i could, to say in like fashion all the things this scholar composed. (if it is true he composed them and did not take them down as she would speak.) many, if not most, the bulk i would say, of the imports that rose from the way he turn'd the words and bended them was profound. and did please me. and the play on words did my heart good. but on the other hand,

i did not like hamlet cast as a brother, for which i doubt the honesty when a true love he may be belike. i did not like the chamber-door dupp'd to show all that was there to show, and the flaxen shroud cast away to show the scholar's tongue at play as he made the words sing the music of now and, betime, speak what now each means and not what it did in that day. but still and all...

i would not, if given to choose (as you yourself must), to choose again which path to take, would not choose a path that did not find these words. i would, belike, choose a path upon which i would find these words long before i did come upon them on the path upon which my soul now treads. but so it goes, not as i wish or hope or pray it may, but as it must, and so i go on as i must.

as one better did say in an argument with himself: you must go on, that's all i know. the words will come to an end (i know that well: to my powers of mind it cannot be denied). one day you will be there and they will not. it will be a hell made of words departed, and as each now is o'erthrown by another now and another now and another now, the hell will last. you may doubt, but doubt not that it will be yours. the one that will last, that did not last, that still may last. doubt not that it will be you. you must go on. and when you think that you cannot go on, you must go on. 'i'll go on', you will say. you must say words, as long as there are words to say, in the expectancy that they will find you, in the expectancy that they will say you. (woe, in jangled countenance, the foul'd command of god in jangled countenance!) you must go on. belike it is done by now. belike they have loosed all the words of you by now. belike they took you upon them, took you to the end of the path before your memory play, before the door that when dupp'd will show then before you your memory play. (that would shatter my expectancy, if it dupp'd.) doubt not that it will be you. doubt not that where you are will be the hell of words departed. you will not know, you will never know: in the hell of words departed you cannot know. but you must go on. "i cannot go on", you will say. "i'll go on", you will say. and you will thank me for this good counsel, as you should.